By William P. Narvey

Most of the news of the Muslim world’s reaction to the Mohammed cartoons, first published by Jyllands-Posten and later by a number of newspapers in other European nations is going from bad to worse, but something positive has come of it for Westerners.

It has not been since 9/11 that an event occurred that so sharpened the West’s understanding of the stark differences between Western and Islamic cultures. While serving to raise Western anger towards radical Muslims, it has also raised fears of the Muslim world.

The print and TV media have provided extensive coverage of the angry violent protests in Middle Eastern Muslim capitals that have led to destroying Danish embassies, the burning of Danish, American and Israeli flags, calls worldwide for a Muslim boycott of Danish goods and more menacingly, calls for the death of Danes, Americans, Jews and anyone who insults Islam.

Some Muslims, including those in the West have demanded apologies from the West while other Muslims claim apologies are not enough.

At the heart of the controversy is that Muslims say any depiction of the Prophet Mohammed is blasphemy and secondly the implication that Islam is a violent religion, insults Islam which Muslims say is a religion of peace.

Jyllands-Posten and other Western media that published the cartoons acted within the bounds of Western laws and freedom of speech. Regardless of reasons for publication, it is done and now the West and Muslims are dealing with it, each taking the measure of the other.

Westerners have had their eyes opened from all this.

In Western minds, the angry and violent Muslim reaction to the Mohammed cartoons actually goes some distance to prove the truth of the cartoons’ message.

Westerners are increasingly aware of the Muslim hypocrisy that while Muslims have gone on an angry rampage over the cartoons, Muslims do nothing to condemn and act against radical Islam that has declared war in the name of Islam against the West. For many Westerners the Muslim claim that Islam is a religion of peace is belied by radical Islam and the Muslim world’s silence in that regard.

Due to the internet, great numbers of Westerners are becoming increasingly aware that the Mohammed cartoons pale to virtual insignificance compared to the vicious and vile cartoons and opinions against Israel, Jews, America and the West published almost daily in many Middle East Muslim state run media outlets.

It has become clearer than ever that these Muslims believe that while they are entitled to say and write whatever they want about the West in their own countries, no matter how heinous and offensive, that the West has no such right and that therefore the West must respect Muslim sensitivities and beliefs in whatever is said and published in Western nations.

Westerners are becoming increasingly aware that those Muslims who demand that the West show Muslims respect, tolerance and sensitivity to their feelings, give none of that in return. This is leading to a growing sense of Western anger and indignation at Muslims arrogantly demanding that the West subordinate their ways to Muslim ways or in other words, to be submissive to Muslim demands.

Even with this rising anger and indignation, Westerners fear Muslims.

There are over 1 billion Muslims in the world. Hopefully the majority are not radicals and like those angry violence prone protesters we have seen on TV. If however, only 1% (and estimates are higher than that) of the world’s Muslims are such radical Muslims, that is an army of well over 1 million.

The memory of Britain’s 7/7 is still vivid when several seemingly normal and peaceful 2nd and 3rd generation Muslims hid their true radical Islamic hate filled natures from even their families and friends and under that guise of normalcy, committed mass murder of innocent British citizens.

How many more such radical Islamists hide in plain view in Western nations, biding their time as they plot the next devastating terrorist attack on Western innocents or who will murder any innocent Westerner who speaks out against Muslims or Islam?

Inherent in Western freedom of speech is the right to say things even offensive, so long as what is said is not in contravention of the lawful limits of freedom of speech. We Westerners have become inured to such freedom of speech and when we find it offensive we may grit our teeth or even be moved to write a letter to the newspaper.

We Westerners however do not react to offense by engaging in hate filled and violent mob protests, destroying property and injuring people in the process as we see many Muslims do. Many Westerners have been horrified by this sight.

It is this fear of Muslims that has led the Danish government to offer an apology. It is fear that led the Bush administration and the British government to condemn the publication of the Mohammed cartoons, which practically amounted to offering Muslims an apology.

It is fear that has led Western leaders to equivocate in defending the Western right of freedom of speech by first defending Jyllands-Posten’s right to publish the cartoons, but then saying it should have not done so, out of regard for Muslim sensitivities.

Westerners no longer doubt that radical Islam cannot be negotiated with and persuaded to abandon its hatreds and goals of destroying and dominating the West.

In the coming weeks and months we will see whether the Muslim world’s angry, demanding and sometimes violent reaction to the cartoons will become the catalyst for the West to screw up its courage to stand up and defend our Western Judeo-Christian values and culture and no longer tolerate and appease those radical Muslims who are intolerant of and only seek to harm or destroy our Western way of life.

Those radical fanatical Muslims including their generals, foot soldiers, Western fifth columnists, financiers and their whole supportive infrastructure, both outside and within the West, are a very deadly disease that can only be cured by the West uniting in an unwavering resolve to win and a relentless attack with bullets and bombs.

(Special Report: Danish Cartoons)

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Related: Arab/Muslim World, Islam, Political Correctness

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