Cartoon protests - yes, still spamming.

[icarus]

In a new turn, a prominent Iranian newspaper, Hamshahri, invited artists to enter a Holocaust cartoon competition, saying it wanted to see if freedom of expression — the banner under which many Western publications reprinted the prophet drawings — also applied to Holocaust images.

Good point. Suddenly the Islamic cartoon protests make sense to me (if not the violence).

Comments

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

All I know is that, when I was reading the news today at work, I couldn't help but picture Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I really hope I'm just being reactionary, but the political structure around Islam--which is in a very delicate transitionary period right now, moving from One Islam (or Two Islamin, Sunni and Shiite) to many different forms--is so volatile that I'm worried that the whole mess is going to blow up before anyone can stop it. The cartoons and the reaction to them is only indicative of greater unrest lurking beneath.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

*nodnod*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's an excellent observation. I hadn't thought about the changes to a multiplicity of "Islams." I guess there have been other types of Islams historically for a long time (I'm thinking of the Indian Sufis here) but nothing like what's happening now. Plus, with

globalization all the different types aren't distant any more.

is so volatile that I'm worried that the whole mess is going to blow up before anyone can stop it.

I was seeing the whole mess as a rather cynical attempt to upgrade the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from lesser political to more important holy wars that would obligate other Muslim countries to help. I rambled on about it here (http://icarusancalion.livejournal.com/458396.html?thread=5646492#t5646492). I suspect the U.N. refusal to participate in the Iraq war has prevented that classification.

Icarus