When Rolling Stone magazine released this month's issue featuring a front page photograph of rapper Kanye West posing as Jesus Christ being crucified, Christians, including myself, expressed outrage. It wasn't at all surprising, but it was insulting. Christian activists announced that the photograph was a mockery to Christianity and that it was irresponsible for Rolling Stone to print it.
Not that anyone else cared. To the press, offending Christians is like offending white supremacists: it's unimportant and irrelevant, even a good thing. CNN, MSNBC, and ABC News all felt no conviction in prominently featuring the offensive photo on their websites. Besides, no one would ever do anything about it, other than complain or perhaps threaten boycotts.
But there's a much different standard held both in the press and in the government with concern to the religion of Islam. Insulting Muslims is like insulting the Mafia in America: don't do it unless you're ready to face the consequences, which always involve a lot of screaming, yelling, threats, violence and usually some dismemberment and homicide.
Worldwide, Muslims are rioting, in many cases violently, over a series of cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper painting Mohammad in a less-than-rosy light. Not that there's anything wrong with being outraged over someone insulting your religion. But, not surprisingly, the Muslim reaction consisted of much more than some angry talk and calls for boycotts. Instead, the practitioners of the Religion of Peace's protests consisted of signs emblazoned with constructively critical messages like "Massacre those who insult Islam," tossing bombs into European cultural centers, and imams calling for Muslims to behead the cartoonists guilty of the awful sin of drawing cartoons accurately depicting Mohammad as a violent person.
Of the aforementioned news websites which featured Kanye West's "Jesus Photo," not one of them displayed any of the cartoons of Mohammad. MSNBC's website features an absurd Q&A style article entitled "Why Muslims are mad over prophet cartoons." It offers all sorts of reasons why Muslims feel the need to throw bombs at innocent people who have nothing to do with a series of cartoons which they didn't like. The article, written by NBC producer Charlene Gubash, proclaims that the Muslims "are very upset that the cartoons appeared to link the prophet to terrorism." According to Gubash, "they believe that the West is labeling all Arabs as terrorists after 9/11." And what better way for the Arab community to put that notion to rest than to behave like terrorists!
Even the United States State Department has joined in on the fun. "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility," said a spokesman. There doesn't seem to be much blame for the evil, opportunistic Muslims who use the cartoons as an excuse to act violently. No, only the newspapers who forced the poor Muslims to act like they have are the bad guys.
However, there's a much larger point in all of this. The difference in treatment of items controversial to Christians and items controversial to Muslims proves more than a simple bias against Christianity in the mainstream media. It demonstrates the ability of the Muslim word to scare everyone into acting how they want. Almost no one cares about offending Christians because Christians aren't going to start threatening another 9/11 and tossing bombs into random buildings in retaliation. When someone offends Muslims, violence always--without exception--follows. When a director named Theo van Gogh released a small independent film about how Muslim societies degrade women, a Muslim brutally murdered him. Anyone who doesn't work hard to create the false impression that Islam is tranquil is punished, or used as an excuse to harm others. It's not a coincidence that no one started violently protesting when Kanye West's photograph was released; namely, it offended Christians. Mass amounts of Christians don't descend into chaos when they're offended. Muslims do.
In response to the comics, an imam in the West Bank erratically stated that "If they want a war of religions, we are ready." It's a shame that Americans refuse to recognize that a "war of religions" is precisely what we are engaged in.
Jake Sweet
Right Wing Echo Chamber
http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowAr ... ate=060204
Biography - Jake Sweet
Jake Sweet is a 15-year old freelance conservative columnist. He is the author of a political website called Right Wing Echo Chamber. He is also a writer for WebCommentary.