What will our children think when they open their textbooks and read about "The Cartoon Wars." Will it be one line? Will it be a whole college course? Will it spawn six movies based in outerspace involving "rebels" and an "empire"? And if so, which side does Luke fight on this time?
I have a bad feeling about these wars. Why? Because I think my children will read about them in textbooks like we read about Archduke Ferdinand--the prelude to something huge. Niall Ferguson, in his 2003 book, "Colosus, the Rise and Fall of the American Empire," equates Israel to the Balkans of our generation. It's more than Israel. It's the whole Middle East. We've been worried about it since the 1950s, and now things are really blowing up.
We have seen, how one assassination can lead to a world war--arguably two (some people, like myself, see the two world wars as really one war with a forced armistice in the middle). Millions of people gassed, maimed, and dead because of a little spark.
Now comes the cartoons. Cartoons printed way back in September in a Danish Newspaper. The Danes, for crying out loud. Their country is smaller than the incorporated area from Houston to Galveston (probably) but definitely smaller than every state in the Union with the exception of maybe Rhode Island. And when did the rioting start? No, not right away when they were first printed. Not even by Muslims in Denmark. No, they start months later after the inciting of violence by muslim clerics using what might even be faked cartoons.
I fear my children will read about the Cartoon Wars as the inciting incident of a world war. Europe and the USA have shown an amazing ineptitude to quench the lies and temper the anger. Public relations bust. When people are willing to force their belief systems on others, or kill them because they have the belief system of someone who pissed them off, they forfeit their right to be respected and tolerated also.
Ultimately, the culture of tolerance (West) will either have to separate itself from the Middle east and it's culture of superiority, or say "that's enough."
I fear it will be the latter. Who will win and be printing the textbooks my children read from?
Sunday, February 19, 2006
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2 comments:
The Muslim philosophy seems to be “Protests and deaths will continue until Western Countries love the Muslims”. The PM must be proud of his people.
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Not just love the Muslims, but become Muslims. Many religions consider themselves the only true religion, and try to convert others with evangelical zeal. However, it is Islam today, the Islam practiced in the Middle East by the people rioting that basically holds a "do or die" philosophy incompatible with the rest of the world.
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