Cartoons: Freedom to Abuse

[Castro]

^ Bashir Goth is onto something here. An earnest plea to reason indeed. NGONGE would love reading this.

[Baashi]

^ Reasonoow xaal qaado.

 

I like Bashir's other essay better. What was the title...singing into vacuum or something along these lines. Oh! my...that was one of the best article ever posted on these boards. He just nailed that one. It was about Somali language and how the youth are losing it.

 

Bashir is talented and prolific writer. He is also a troubled man with flawed thinking. Case in point is this article. He comes across as an apologist. As apologists do, Bashir downplays the significance of the Danes’ plunder and exaggerates the negative reaction of the offended party.

 

All I see in this essay is a man who is trying very hard in order to exonerate right-wing Danes and their European buddies from any wrong doing. Not only he excuses their blunder but he also asks the offended party to turn the other cheek for more smacking. That’s the Islamic way - he seems to be saying! They are free people, he reminds the readers, and have every right to do whatever they want in their backyard. The man is brilliant and he knows such exhortation don’t go down very well with nomads. So he flips the good Book and finds couple of verses that might support his selective perception. Largely through omission, he accomplishes that insulting the prophet is acceptable! Bravo!

 

I loved the part where he glorifies Islam and its approach as far as appealing to the intellect of its adversaries is concerned. He is right on the money there. But look where he went from there. In no time he immediately uses the word Islam and Muslims interchangeably. He invokes repulsive and regrettable events such as beheadings, embassy burnings, senseless riots, and nine eleven among others carried out by few deviant nutcases and attributes to the Muslims (all guilty by association). The negative presentation of Muslim behavior is punctuated with exaggerated positive attributes of the West: welfare system, liberty, freedom of speech, and their generosity.

 

The only agreeable point he made is how Muslims need a reality check. Likewise, I say, the right-wing provocateurs agenda must not be taken lightly. There is strong undercurrent to these hateful manifestations such as the one exhibited by right-wing Danes. And if left unchecked (how to prevent them from implementing their fascist agenda is open for discussion) those of us who live in the West will be exposed to their rage. Bashir misses this point. He goes miles and miles in order to downplay this potentially explosive confrontation between Muslim minorities and the Western right-wing hate groups.

[Castro]

Originally posted by Baashi:

As apologists do, Bashir downplays the significance of the Danes’ plunder and exaggerates the negative reaction of the offended party....... All I see in this essay is a man who is trying very hard in order to exonerate right-wing Danes and their European buddies from any wrong doing. Not only he excuses their blunder but he also asks the offended party to turn the other cheek for more smacking.

Show me where he does this atheer. And sometimes, good Baashi, the messenger is someone we don't like very much and we tend to throw the baby out with the bath water. Goth summed this up very nicely with appropriate historical references and it is he whom you owe xaal. I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. Though much greater in number, Muslims are as weak today as the early days of Islam. If not with dialogue and/or diplomatic, economical, political or legal pressure, turning the cheek is not one of many options, it's the only option. What else could Muslims do? Invade Northern Europe? Gone are the days, atheer, when Muslims could mobilize large formidable armies when one woman was raped. Goth is not being an apologist, good Baashi, he's being a realist.

[Naden]

Bashir Goth's article while emotional, does not apologize for Islam and muslims. Muslim 'moderates' have a muted voice nowadays (I place quotes around the word to refer to the non-Imams/Mullahs who are versed in Islamic history and doctrine and are able to negotiate present problems - no need to scream that there should only be one type of muslim).

 

I do not agree with a few of the man's views such as the true intentions of the western world in extending helping hands to muslims during the Tsunami and other events. I do find a poignant argument in the present state of poverty and illiteracy among large numbers of muslims which makes them easy to incite on some issues and largely ignorant of more malignant problems within their borders.

[Castro]

^ Ok. Emotional? Yes. Unreasonable? I don't think so. But good Baashi will say I wouldn't know the difference.

[NGONGE]

Originally posted by Castro:

^ Bashir Goth is onto something here. An earnest plea to reason indeed. NGONGE would love reading this.

I can’t really fault the man’s logic. It’s a powerful (though slightly on the long side) piece. I personally thought he was reasonable and controlled. His usual pieces are, almost always, hard on Muslims. There is also, usually, an attempt at a ‘fatwa’ or two (his Ramadan piece is a great example). Here however, he dealt with real problems with complete sense, solid logic and exceptional clarity. There was no attempt to ‘allow’ or ‘forbid’ anything. He started by praising reason and, fortunately enough for him, did not let himself down when it came to his own wisdom.

 

A most enjoyable read.

[Naden]

Originally posted by Castro:

^ Ok. Emotional? Yes. Unreasonable? I don't think so. But good Baashi will say I wouldn't know the difference.

Agreed. Reason rarely fails him in his writings. Bashir Goth is a daciya of sorts, I think, and is very much hard on fellow muslims. Some accuse him of being too forgiving of the Western world and not having enough pride in a muslim 'identity'. I think that such an identity can be foolhardy, much like nationalism because muslims are not a monolithic group and they often have divergent interests and views on the world.

[Pi]

Don't ya'll get nauseated about talking about one friggin topic for weekends on end. Give it a rest, people!

[Baashi]

^

 

I like that. Now get a gambar and listen up boy.

 

Now Bashir's long exhortation misses a crucial point here. You would think that he would address the fact that Muslims are in a catch 22. If they do what he would like them to do which is turn the other cheek and have the right-wing hate groups have free ride and propogate their agenda then these parties will get enough political capital to win majority in their respective countries. What would happen if media drives home the image that Islam is not compatible with democracy and it is evil religion huh?

 

I don't have enough time now but I don't see the case he is advancing here as far as the facts on the European grounds are concerned. There is real effort in some corners to villify Islam and the minoroties there don't have the platform to counter that charge. Fascism and anti-immigrant bias is in the rise in Europe and the right-wing Danes is in line with this feelings.

 

Now Bashir narrative on how Islam is tolerant and how it thrives when reasoning is the name of the game is right on the money. He is also right on the current state of the ummah: its bacwardness and what not. He is also right that Muslims need to bring themselves at the mirror and take hard look at themselves. All these points are great. However the man misses the mark when it comes what this cartoon controversy is all about and its significance. The worst thing that can happen to Muslims is when neocons of European flavor seize power.

 

And what does he d...he goes on and on and on about different but related issues about Muslims shortcomings. Give ne break!

 

How come hee ignores the double standards exercised by western media when it comes to the all things Islamic. He ignores the fact that Muslims suffered so much at the hands of Western powers. The ideal reaction he would like to see from his fellow Muslims is something akin to that of enslaved Blacks and that of poor American natives.

 

As I said the man is a talented and prolific writer but his thinking is deeply flawed = at least on this issue.

 

Excuse the rambling...time dear time is too short.

[Castro]

Originally posted by Baashi:

What would happen if media drives home the image that Islam is not compatible with democracy and it is evil religion huh?

And that has not happened already? The media has been greatly assisted by violent (often misscalculated and myopic) reactions by Muslims to legitimate grievances. From the flushing of the Quran to the cartoons. The media couldn't make up some of the things we do to our cause.

 

Fascism and anti-immigrant bias is in the rise in Europe and the right-wing Danes is in line with this feelings.

True.

 

The worst thing that can happen to Muslims is when neocons of European flavor seize power.

And that's not the case already? Country after country in western Europe voted in a "Conservative" (right-wing) government in the past few years. France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, UK, Norway, Austria and others. Though it may seem the shift is rooted in economic difficulties facing these countries, anti-immigrant sentiment is front and center in many of the campaigns. It's water under the bridge already, atheer.

 

He ignores the fact that Muslims suffered so much at the hands of Western powers. The ideal reaction he would like to see from his fellow Muslims is something akin to that of enslaved Blacks and that of poor American natives.

Atheer Baashi, while you cry me a river ( ), explain what you mean by this.

[Castro]

Cartoons and Hypocrisy

 

Danes Finally Apologize to Muslims (But for the Wrong Reasons)

 

By RACHARD ITANI

 

In many European countries, there are laws that will land in jail any person who has the chutzpah to deny not only the historicity of the Jewish holocaust, but also the method by which Jews were put to death by the Nazis. In some of these countries, this prohibition goes as far as prosecuting those who would claim or attempt to prove that less than 6 million jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. In none of these countries are there similar laws that threaten people with loss of freedom and wealth for denying that large percentages of gypsies, gays, mentally retarded, and other miscellaneous "debris of humanity" were also eliminated by the Jew-slaughtering Nazis.

 

Quickly now: what defines a hypocrite? Answer: a person who follows the letter of the law, but not its spirit. The laws against anti-semitism are just that: laws against anti-semitism enacted by hypocritical Europeans with blood on their hands from the genocides in their recent and distant past, and much guilt to atone for in their hearts and minds.

 

The spirit of the law, which would extend this protection to Muslims as well, if not indeed other religious groups, is nowhere to be found in the Western legal code. You can curse the Prophet of the Muslims at will and with total impunity. However, approach the holocaust at your own risks and perils if you do not include in your discussion the standard, ritualistic incantations about the six million Jewish victims of the European Nazis. There is a word for this in the English language: hypocrisy.

 

I used to have a lot of respect for the Dutch, the Danes, and the Norwegians, and still do. However, I cannot claim that this respect is not more nuanced today. The coloring started when the Dutch, who are invariably and automatically described as being amongst the most "tolerant" people in the West, if not the world, proved that their tolerance was little more than skin deep. Their reaction to the murder of Theo Van Gogh was anything but driven by tolerance. They behaved as a mob in reaction to the criminal, despicable action of an extremist and murderer, by painting the whole Dutch muslim community with the same broad brush that Vincent Van Gogh would have eschewed. They burnt Muslim schools and mosques. They directed opprobrium at Muslims in their midst, calling on them "to go home" though many had been born in the Netherlands. No subtlety in the Dutch reaction. Just collective anti-semitism which they directed not at the Jews, but at the Jews' cousins, the Muslims.

 

Then the Danes, who must have felt left out, decided to go the Dutch one better: a Danish paper published cartoons that are no less offensive to Muslims than anti-semitism is to Jews. The cartoons were described by Danish politicians and the press as not provocation, but a principled case of free speech, although many Danish and Scandinavian newspaper editors are on record stating that they published the cartoons as an act of defiance against "radical Islam." This is akin to these ignorant morons recommending that the U.S. ought to nuke Tehran because that would teach Iranian President Ahmadinejad a lesson.

 

What free speech are we talking about here? The law says thou shalt not utilize or publish anti-semitic language or imagery. Consequently, Danish (and other European) papers will refrain from doing so, lest they fall foul of the law and offend Jewish sensitivities. The law does not say: thou shalt not offend muslims or use imagery that may be deeply offensive to them. So Danish papers will not refrain from doing so, in fact they will go out of their way to offend Muslims both in Denmark and around the world, in the name of "free speech." And the Norwegians? Well, they just decided to follow the Danes down perdition lane, all in the name of holy hypocrisy, so a Norwegian paper also published the offending cartoons. The statement about "confronting radical Islam" was in fact made by the Norwegian editor of a newspaper that is described as a "Norwegian Christian Paper." And now that other European papers and Magazines have also followed suit, if there was any doubt that this affair is one of anti-Muslim bias, it was swept away by the statements of the Editor in Chief of Die Welt, the German magazine, who declared that the right to publish the cartoons was "at the very core of our culture" and that Europeans cannot "stop using our journalistic right of freedom of expression within legal boundaries." It's the "legal boundaries" qualifier that gives the game away: there are no legal boundaries in Europe protecting Muslims from the same ignominies that the law protects Jews from.

 

And what further argument does Die Welt put forward to justify its "legal" action? " It pointed out that "Syrian TV had depicted Jewish rabbis as cannibals." You can imagine how helpful a similar argument would hold up in a court of law: "But your honor, I only killed one guy and raped two women: the other guy killed four and raped 10!" That a German editor-in-chief of a major German paper should use the "legal" argument to justify offending the religious sensitivities of Muslims, when that same "legal" framework would see him thrown in jail faster than he could spell the word legal if he offended the sensitivities of Jews, may be a testament at least of his own deep-seated contempt for Muslims. That so many European papers have now reprinted the offensive cartoons is an indication that the contempt for Muslims does not stop with the editor-in-chief of Die Welt.

 

This whole affair is nothing but an over-reaction to a simple cartoon, you say? Not if you remember a certain other cartoon that appeared in the British newspaper, The Independent, on 27 January 2003. It depicted Prime Minister Sharon of Israel eating the head of a Palestinian child while saying: "What's wrong? You've never seen a politician kissing babies before?" Jews in Britain and around the world erupted with indignation, arguably because the depiction reminded them of millennial charges levied against them by Christians who accused them of using the blood of babies in ritualistic killings. You see, Sharon can actually kill, maim and spill the real, actual blood of Palestinian babies: that is not offensive to Zionist Jews and their apologists in the West. But let Sharon be depicted in a cartoon metaphorically as the ogre that he has proved to be in his real life, symbolically eating a Palestinian child, and the world will erupt in offended indignation. A cartoon that is offensive to Muslims, on the other hand, is depicted as nothing but an expression of "free speech." There is a word for this in any language: hypocrisy.

 

Before the Danish cartoon incident started to evolve into a growing international crisis, the Danish Prime Minister and the publisher of the Danish newspaper that first published the offending cartoons both declared that they would never apologize on grounds of free speech and because publishing the cartoons had not broken any Danish laws. (Yes, the "no law broken" argument again.) Yesterday, however, they both ended up apologizing in the face of a growing tsunami of protests on the part of Arab and Muslim governments, some of whom withdrew their Ambassadors from Copenhagen. The Danish prime minister did not apologize because his moral compas suddenly found True North again. The real reason, of course, is that he understood, though a tad too late, the potential economic consequences of a widespread boycott of Danish goods on the part of one billion people. There is a word for this in the Danish language: realpolitik.

 

Muslims and other reasoning people around the world understand well that European laws against anti-Semitic speech, writing, and behavior, were enacted for two reasons. The stated reason was to protect the Jews from the continued onslaught of anti-Semitic attacks, both verbal and physical, which culminated historically in the repeated pogroms that Christian Europeans launched against Jews repeatedly through the centuries. (Historically, it was the Arabs who protected the Jews and took them in whenever they fled Christian barbarity, especially in the Middle Ages.) The real reason, of course, is to protect the Europeans from the pangs of their own conscience, which has very good reason to feel guilty indeed, given what Europeans did to Jews in the last millennium, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, not to mention what they did to the indiginous people of the Carribean and the Americas since the 1600s, and to the people of Asia, Africa and Oceania as well. I have long thought that it's European Christians, more so than Jews, who ought to observe Yom Kippur, or adopt a similar atonement observance of their own.

 

While the spirit of the law is that Europeans shalt not offend any ethnic or religious groups including Muslims, this seems to be lost only on the Europeans themselves, or at least the Danes, the Germans and their ilk amongst them, who only care about, or fear, the letter of the law. Why should we therefore be shocked when Muslims depict Europeans as nothing but a bunch of hypocrites? Why shouldn't Governments of Muslim countries recall their Ambassadors to Denmark in protest, as some did? The only disappointment is that no Western or non-Muslim government, the meek complaints to a French newspaper by the French Foreign Office excepted, had the moral and ethical courage to publicly, unequivocally and forcefully condemn an act that is as deeply offensive to Muslims as the desecration of a Torah scroll, or of a Jewish cemetery, is offensive to all civilized people in the world, be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Animist, or Atheist.

 

There are two ways for Europeans to redeem themselves: the immediate temptation would be to call on their national parliaments to extend the protections of the laws against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denying to Islam and Muslims, as well as any other religious group . That would be the wrong recommendation however. The right recommendation would be to repeal the laws that govern holocaust denying and other laws that favor one group over another, so that the issue truly becomes one of free speech. And if Europeans are the civilized people they claim to be, then their politicians and newspaper publishers ought to find it easy to immediately apologize when they have unwittingly offended the taboos of any human community, be it religious or otherwise.

 

Muslims and Arabs have suffered enough hypocrisy on the hands of European Christians, just as Jews suffered in the past on the hands of these same Europeans, and as Palestinian Muslims and Christians alike are suffering today on the hands of Americans, Europeans and, of course, Zionist Jews, both Sephardim and Ashkenazi. If Europe thinks of itself as a civilized society, then it ought to do its utmost to redress the wrongs that too many people around the world have suffered as a result of European misbehavior and often outright criminal actions, most especially since the 1400s.

 

Muslims deserve nothing more nor less than for Christians in the U.S. and Europe, and Zionist Jews in Israel, to simply abide by the golden rule: treat others as you would have others treat you. So far, Christians and Zionist Jews have proven that they only abide by the alternative definition of this rule: "They who have the gold, make the rule." The gold in this case is a combination of economic and military might. Of this, Europeans, Zionist Jews and their American overlords have aplenty in reserve. Were it that they also had an equal reserve of un-hypocritical, civilized morality and ethical behavior to underpin their feelings of sanctimonious superiority.

 

And the other measure that Europeans can adopt to redeem themselves? The European people can start by throwing out of office, and initiating criminal proceedings against, any politician responsible for sending a single soldier to invade, occupy, and initiate pogroms against the people of Iraq: these politicians have been guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which makes them unfit for the honors that continued office holding bestows upon them. Europeans can also give the boot to any politician who has approved or turned a blind eye to a single rendition flight that sent any person to the torture chambers of the Americans or their surrogate torturers in some Arab or Muslim countries. These are the same countries whose religious sensitivities we should all respect as strongly as we respect Jewish sensitivities when it comes to the Jewish holocaust, not because the law says so, but because it's the right thing to do. These are also the same countries whose human rights trespasses Europeans ought to condemn as equally and vehemently as they should condemn the continued human rights abuses and state terrorism perpetrated by the Israeli government in Palestine/Israel, and by some European governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in other out-of-sight/out-of-mind places like Haiti, Africa, and elsewhere.

 

In other words, Europeans can start by applying the simple rule of one weight and one measure to both friends and foes, equally to themselves and to the rest of the world, because policy and politics, both domestic and foreign, ought to be based upon and subject to principled moral considerations, not expediency of the economic, financial or religious kind.

 

Is that such an unreasonable moral proposition to consider?

 

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[Baashi]

Good read sxb. [edited]

 

^Ready Mr. Quuqle numero uno aight here I go...wabaa misana wabaa...

 

Now that's outta my way let's go do the bus go round and round, round and round choir.

 

Bashir compares Muslim grievances to that of Indian loss, Jewish genocide, African slave trade, and most recent one South African apparthied. He implies that the loss these groups experienced is far greater than the one Muslims are "chronically" complaining about. The point he is trying to make, as I understood it, is that these groups endured these historical setbacks and come out just fine.

 

Now I don't know about you but my impression is that the culprits are one and same and they don't hesitate or shy away to do inhuman things (so much of western values talk) when their interest are at stake. To urge Muslims to take it easy and embrace the Western "values" and emulate native Indian model is not a good startegy in my book. I disagreed with this line of reasoning and questioned his anaylsis and forsight on this issue. You feel me Singore Fidel.

 

Waryee aan kaa shaqeystee quuqlinamada naga dhaaf

[Castro]

^ That's all I was asking atheer. I couldn't understand what you meant by that last sentence but now that you explained yourself, I'm not so sure you've justified anything but your disdain for Bashir Goth. Ah well, to each his own I suppose.

[Khayr]

Salamz,

 

I wonder what was CW now known as Amelia's reason for posting that article. :rolleyes:

 

KEYBOARD ORIENTALISTS only end up CONFUSING themselves.

 

These indecent attributes of Meccan non-believers to Muhammad are in our holy Qur’an. We read them everyday and we teach them to our children, but we don’t get angry and they don't prompt us to extricate these insulting words from the holy book and declare them as an apocrypha. Simply because

we read them in their historical perspective and they teach us a valuable lesson that finally it was the word and indeed free speech that won the battle against the emotional outbursts of Muhammad’s adversaries, the sword of later days was but incidental.

:eek: :eek: :eek:

 

Easier to spread Confusion among the gullible, liberal oriented muslims.

 

Since when was the life of the Rasul (salallahu calihe wasilm) and his Sunnah (path/way) become limited to a 'HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE'?

If that is true, then Lessons to be learnt from the rasul's life, sunnans to be practiced from his life can be labelled to be OUTDATED and USELESS.

Why wear leather socks, or grow the beard, visit the sick, after all there are cotton socks that are in abundance and cheap to purchase;wearing a beard would bring Unwanted Attention and Hostility, so its 'Out of style today';who needs to visit the sick b/c doctors heal a person better then a regular religious visitor...etc.

 

the sword of later days was but incidental.

If it was Incidental, then why would Allah praise those who speak the truth and fight for it over and over again in the quran (some of these verses are in Al Baqra) and in other parts of the quran.

 

May be if we had read the Danish cartoons in the same historical and geographical perspective, we would have understood that

Denmark is a non-Muslim country with its own values, its own culture and that the Danish people have the right to behave the way they want to behave on their own turf.

But Bashir Goth has a different standard that applies to the Muslims as he comes down upon the Taliban

The Taliban regime that kept the Afghan people hostage for years, ridiculed its female population and destroyed the historical heritage of the Afghan civilization and religious sculpturers of Buddha without any regard to the religious feelings of millions of Buddhists around the world was an insult to Islam.

Don't those muslims have their own Values, don't they have the right to behave the way they want to behave on their own turf too

 

Once again the double standards of a KEYBOARD ORIENTALIST such as Bashir Goth and those that agree with him.

[Castro]

Misunderstanding Muslims

by James Carroll

 

 

When the Koran was said to have been denigrated by American guards at Guantanamo last year, Muslims reacted with rage, but most observers in the West misunderstood why.

 

It was easy for Christians and Jews -- the other ''people of the Book" -- to think that such an insult to the Koran was like an insult to the Bible. That would be sacrilege enough, but it was worse than that.

 

Drawing analogies between religions can mislead, but the Koran stands in Islamic belief more as Jesus does in Christian faith than as the Bible. As this Christian understands it, the Koran embodies the incarnational principle, with the chanting of the holy words that came from God to Mohammed as the way God's presence is experienced again.

 

Non-Muslims tend to think that the Prophet is to Islam something like what Jesus is to Christianity (which is why non-Muslims have mistakenly called the religion ''Mohammedanism"), but it is the Koran that holds such a central place. Hence, Islamic visual celebration is calligraphy, not images. Therefore when the Koran is disrespected, the insult Muslims feel is nothing less than insult to God.

 

Insult, of course, is the issue that has been put so explosively before the world recently. The Danish cartoons were a flame applied to a primed fuse, and the extraordinary reactions to the images from across the whole House of Islam point beyond the immediate provocation to a far broader sense of insult that Muslims have been made to feel.

 

One need not excuse the indiscriminate violence of mobs in the streets, nor dismiss the good question of why such rage is not directed against the blasphemy of suicide-murders carried out in the name of Allah to take a lesson from what has happened. The Islamic world seems astoundingly united in sending a stern message to ''the West," and instead of focusing again on ''what went wrong" with Islam Europeans and Americans would do well to take that message in.

 

Thinking of deep history, for example, we might recall that the very structures of politics, culture, and thought that define western civilization were expressly erected in opposition to Islam more than 1,000 years ago.

 

What we call ''the West" was born in the clash of civilizations that climaxed in the Crusades, with Muslims assigned the role of the external ''negative other" against which Christendom defined itself positively (The internal ''negative other" were the Jews). Among Europeans, and then Americans, that intellectual polarity was sublimated over the centuries, but its insult remained current among Muslims, and was powerfully resuscitated by the assault of colonialism.

 

The economics of oil, including the creation of an oppressive local class of Western-sponsored oligarchs, locked the grievous insult in place. As if to be sure it was more sharply felt than ever, Europe imported ''guest workers" from the Islamic world, openly consigning them to an underclass that is as religiously defined as it is permanent.

 

And then the United States launched its wars. One of the major disconnects in the present conflict is the way in which European and American analysis obsesses with the apparently anarchic outbursts of violence in the ''Arab street" without taking in how brutally violent the post-9/11 ''coalition" assault has been, not only physically but psychologically.

 

Mobs throw stones through the windows of European consulate offices, and the legion of CNN watchers recoils with horror. Meanwhile, unmanned drones fly across stretches of desert to drop loads of fire on the heads of subsistence farmers in their villages; children die, but CNN is not there.

 

Billions of dollars are being poured each month into the project of imposing an American solution on an Arab problem, and increasingly the solution looks, from the other side, like annihilation. Muslims, that is, understand the new reality far better than non-Muslims do -- the state of open cultural warfare that ''the West" imagines is a narrowly targeted war against ''terrorism." Muslims, as Muslims, experience themselves as on the receiving end of a savage -- but, alas, not unprecedented -- assault.

 

Are they wrong? In the argument over ''Enlightenment" values, sparked by the cartoons, some champions of free expression have fallen into the deadly old mistake that led, in the 20th century, to a grotesque betrayal of those very values -- the over-under ranking of human beings, with the lives of some being counted as cheap.

 

Why are we killing them? As with multiple problems today, this one comes back to the misbegotten American war. It threatens to ignite the century, and must be stopped.

 

James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.

 

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