Politics of
the Cartoons Controversy
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
Syed Arif Hussaini discusses
a conspiracy which brought into being the recent
cartoon controversy, Pakistan Link, February 24,
2006. His assessment seemingly is correct: it
was a calculated attempt to create a wedge between
the Christians and Muslims in order to catalyze
the dormant thesis of the Clash of Civilizations.
The people who wanted to take advantage of it
thought it was the time primed to provoke the
Muslims.
The Muslims, indeed, have been provoked, as has
been aptly demonstrated by their violent reaction
all over the world. It is also true at the same
time that the Christians too fell in the trap
by being instigated to create a conflict. It was
so simple: the Judeo-Christian world has always
felt threatened by Islam. As Daniel Martin Varisco
says in his book, Islam Obscured, the “history
of the much of the known world from our still
entrenched Eurocentric perspective revolves in
large part around the influence of Islam and the
diverse cultures that embraced it, absorbed it,
spread it, and still revere it.”
The sad part of this episode is that the United
States, being the most liberal and tolerant of
the countries in the western hemisphere, by taking
the lead has been able to electrify the continents
of Europe and North America with religious intolerance
which has been unleashed by a coterie of neo-cons.
But the saddest part is that the West has proved
itself so ready to shed its garb of enlightenment,
liberalism and tolerance, the qualities which
are enshrined as precious and sacred in their
culture, for which they proudly declare others
do not have. For throwing it to the winds, only
the slightest pretext is needed if it comes to
disgracing Islam. Or the thin layer of enlightenment
is simply a façade?
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