LADY BIRD BLUE CHEESE
So, I can no more eat Danish blue cheese. Is this what you are telling me?
Well, it is not really the matter of eating or not eating, boycotting or not, it is for me the matter of the ideology, the moving force behind it. Just to be honest, I actually like the stand the muslim are taking with economically pushing and proving their power. I like that we can stand together for a cause. Use our strength point to push our way and say 'No, we don't like what you are saying. Please, stop. Don't even apologize. Just respect our feelings when we say we don't like the damn cartoon.' Good. Fine till here. End of story. But having some extremist say, 'death to denmark. Death to don't know what' is utter naivity and stupidity. You people, your prophet was made into a 'terrorist', and you are not doing anything other than taking this cartoon into reality. DAAA. Everyone of you, of us muslims, is a prophet. Not prophet Muhammad, but the symbol of Islam. The prophet himself in this cartoon, is not the Prophet Muhammad in blood and flesh, he is merely the symbol. So it is not about Prophet Muhammad, it is about the image and the message he carried.
So, aside with this 'what will the prophet tell me when I meet him.' Well, he won't say that you didn't defend me. He will say, you didn't defend yourself. Your identity. The message. But the prophet himself, well, he himself was hurt by the non-believers of his time. He didn't do anything. He focused on the message. On delivering it. Rectifying it. Not on his personal suffering. So enough with the emotional talks. Stop being on a listening mode. Enough being parrots and know what image or message of Islam you are trying to deliver and show the world.
Blue cheese or not, this has nothing to do with the prophet being put in a cartoon.
Well, it is not really the matter of eating or not eating, boycotting or not, it is for me the matter of the ideology, the moving force behind it. Just to be honest, I actually like the stand the muslim are taking with economically pushing and proving their power. I like that we can stand together for a cause. Use our strength point to push our way and say 'No, we don't like what you are saying. Please, stop. Don't even apologize. Just respect our feelings when we say we don't like the damn cartoon.' Good. Fine till here. End of story. But having some extremist say, 'death to denmark. Death to don't know what' is utter naivity and stupidity. You people, your prophet was made into a 'terrorist', and you are not doing anything other than taking this cartoon into reality. DAAA. Everyone of you, of us muslims, is a prophet. Not prophet Muhammad, but the symbol of Islam. The prophet himself in this cartoon, is not the Prophet Muhammad in blood and flesh, he is merely the symbol. So it is not about Prophet Muhammad, it is about the image and the message he carried.
So, aside with this 'what will the prophet tell me when I meet him.' Well, he won't say that you didn't defend me. He will say, you didn't defend yourself. Your identity. The message. But the prophet himself, well, he himself was hurt by the non-believers of his time. He didn't do anything. He focused on the message. On delivering it. Rectifying it. Not on his personal suffering. So enough with the emotional talks. Stop being on a listening mode. Enough being parrots and know what image or message of Islam you are trying to deliver and show the world.
Blue cheese or not, this has nothing to do with the prophet being put in a cartoon.
Comments
I've been asking myself; I don't feel offended because of the cartoons, does this make me a lesser muslim? Should I feel bad because of that and start questioning how strong my faith is?
I think its great that everyone is cooperating and reacting strongly in a such collective manner. (Rubba daraton nafe3a I guess!).
I do think its very important to have a healthy dialgoue among cultures in an indirect way for us to try to understand (atleast) and accept each other. One, present, two, dialogue, three, interact, and while doing so each one preserves their principles and values. The goal is for each culture to understand where the 'other' comes from, and why, without trying to impose their own values.
However, relevant to the Danish cartoons issue in particular, I don't think this is the immediate solution to the problem. The dialogue and the presention of the right image of Islam is very important and is a long-term life-long project, but is not the suitable action on the short term to the problem at hand. The way Muslims see it, is that the Danes have breached us and they need to take corrective actions.
This is one of the very rare times where the Muslims have shown unity and power in their action. The boycott was a strong and threatening message. The condemnation of the act done by the Danish newspaper, was vivid throughout all of the Muslim world.
I do regret the violence and burning of embassies, and sometimes I wonder about the protests as well. Yet protests *are* a powerful show of solidarity and emotions. They see us as silly maybe, but it makes them realize that this is important to us, and yes, they will realize that our values are different.
So first, respect us, and then we can talk. Respect comes from understanding yes, but also from power. They both go hand in hand, and while we are in fact as weak as we could be, this problem has shown that we still have a few cards that we can use.
To be honest, the cartoons do not offend me that much (maybe that means that I'm not a good Muslim, maybe). What offends me however is the disrespect --not to our prophet (PBUH)-- but to muslims at large and how they are taken so lightly.
To relate to how a powerful group deals with a similar problem. If someone speaks "wrongly" of the Holocaust, the Jews make sure to shut them up and punish them, not discuss with them. While the brain-washing activities are on-going in the background in parallel. And ofcourse they are capable to do both effectively because they are indeed powerful.
We are talking about the European Christian culture. The same culture that mocks Jesus in a large variety of cartoons, jokes and other as such. One of their main mistakes, I think, was believing they can treat other religions and cultures just as they treat their own.
Now that this has been stated what I don't understand is this: why are Dutch authorities so eager to blame terrorist organization for using the cartoons as an excuse for violence and not half as eager to have a formal apology of some sort repeated over and over again?
Mo here speaks of dialogue. True, it is important, not necessarily to solve this, but to get to know each other, to understand which values are not to mess with. But a healthy dialogue means to first admit when you were wrong. And this acknowledgement of guilt, the mea culpa, is a bit blury.