One of my favourite things about desecration of the various flags of the world, is not only the statement it makes about blood soaked nationalism’s foolishness, but that it also very often involves the desecration of religious symbols. If you, for example, burn (walk or shit on) say, an Australian flag, you are defiling at least three symbols of Christian fealty simultaneously: the crosses of ‘Saints’ Patrick, Andrew and George and you could possibly also include the celestial symbol, which Christian astronomers called the Southern Cross, to boot.

If you were wondering about the symbolic impact of religion upon our modern state system, try a look at that colorful Flags of the World page. There you will see how numerous religiously inspired murderous rampages have so successfully influenced our various glorious founders.

Burning the Danish flag limits you to only the one crucifix, whereas the Israeli flag is based most obviously upon the star of a king appointed by Jehovah himself (sic) as well as a prayer mat for religious observations decreed by the same dude or his (sic) followers.

Burn any and all religious and nationalist symbols, I say. I support most forms of non-violent protest. I am also viscerally opposed to censorships, whether state imposed or, worse still, imposed by religious megalomaniacal fear-mongers.

I noticed that most of people offended by depictions of the prophet did not kidnap anyone or threaten lives. Indeed, most of those I know have been simply getting on with their daily lives. There were a goodly number who chanted slogans, marched in the streets, occupied buildings, fired guns into the air, and even desecrated flags. More power to them.

I am a little weirded out by the pent-up criticism of the Muslims, by Salon readers from the US and obviously Europe. Not that I don't agree with a lot of the points made - Religion breeds extremists and they get out of bounds on a regular basis. Mobs and murder are not acceptable , however, and it should be up to the governments to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators and at the same time, avoid profiling and discrimination. Their best defense is to depend on the law, which immigrants should be bound to obey or face deportation. Will they do it? That is the crucial question. Unfortunately, riots do work to intimidate law enforcement and anti-Muslim discrimination is wide-spread in Europe. Both sides have work to do.

However, I have a problem with letter-writers lumping all Muslims in with the demonstrators. At least allow for secular Arabs, women and children and many more who are are moderate but suppressed by the mullahs and gangs. There has also been simplistic stereotyping that is not only in error (Islam had an incredible renaissance of art and scientific knowledge that flowered during our Dark Ages in Europe. We were the ignorant barbarians then.) -- but it diminishes the adult ideals of free speech, souring it with childish nastiness. Your mother dresses you funny too.

While Islam was spread by the sword, it is up to modern Muslims to embrace or rewrite this legacy. We can't do much to force our version of culture on them without turning into Dick Cheney. Lets avoid that at all costs.

I'm still learning to adjust to the idea of living under the watchful eye of this iron-fisted Global Theocracy. Who knew that when Big Brother finally arrived, he'd be robed and bearded?

Why is it acceptable to show images of people being decapitated on television, but a dozen cartoons are enough to organize a worldwide "day of anger?" Why did the U.S. or any of the other countries whose citizens were shown on Al-jazeera being killed not demand apologies from Qatar? While I would imagine it was not easy to be an Arab-American the day after the first round of those videos were released, I do not remember Arab-Americans being kidnapped or held at gunpoint. Perhaps it went unreported or unnoticed on my part.

While Pat Robertson and the Phelps clan are disturbing, America's crazies seem tame compared to the response of some Middle Easterners to the cartoon scandal- "Death to Denmark" "Let the hand that drew be severed?" My ingrained liberal apologetic tendencies are starting to wear thin. Pundits are pointing to inequalities and segregation as motivations behind Muslim's response, but at least personally, this serves as yet another example that there is no hope for peace with these people.

The fact that there are now "these people" in my mind scares me, but I know that started sometime in June of 2005 after another day of "Bomb Kills 17" headlines. Some Muslims are just starting to seem crazy to me, and I am not sure what to do about it. My undergrad was in religion, with plans for a Ph.D., but I find it hard to stay objective against an apparent sea of violence. I am becoming less and less interested in understanding a culture that is willing to broadcast beheadings but foam at the mouth about some cartoons. And that concerns me.

Wow fairweather liberals unite.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1701681,00.html

I have been pondering some of the comments here and must support the observation that the current violence and diplomatic posturing seems to pour forth almost exclusively from Muslim men. The Press and others have depicted this out-pouring of rage as a matter of the principle of aniconism, the non-portryal of living things, especially human, more especially Mohammed himself, in Islamic art. This fails I believe to really grasp what is at stake here for the Muslim, particularly Arab world.

The image of Mohammed goes straight to the core identity of most Muslim men. Rather than the programme of Islam (submission) laid forth in the Qur'an, many, many Muslims have turned Islam into a 'cult of the perfect man' centred of course around Mohammed. Just read an orthodox biography (e.g. Martin Lings) and see how a believer defends many of Mohammed's 'problematic' (to use academia's favourite term) actions. Karen Armstrong also dabbled in this, trying to convince readers that the Qurayza massacre had to be read in some sort of justifiable context.

My suspicion is that the author(s) of the Qur'an wrote the work/formed the religion in response to the veneration of Jesus in place of God (the doctrinal trick of the Trinity not withstanding). Wearing a beard for men, wearing the hijab for women, getting circumcised, etc, none of these things are necessarily Qur'anic and in fact circumcision quite definitely violates the Qur'an's claim that Allah created the human body perfect. The point is that these are practised based on the example of Mohammed and that is considered a valid justification by almost all branches of the faith. The Qur'an says at numerous points, however, that it is the ONLY source of law for Muslims and that The Prophets ONLY job is to deliver the recitation (the literal meaning of al Qur'an). Thus basing Islamic practice on Mohammed's life becomes drawing belief from the Prophet and not god, which if you have ever read the Qur'an is bad, very bad, hell-fire eternity bad.

Thus Islam has become exactly what it was probably not intended to be. It is not a mistake that it has been called Mohammedanism by early scholars. To provide an example within Islam itself, the Salafists (Wahhabis) have made celebration of Mohammed's birthday illegal in Saudi Arabia for many years (although now it is no longer enforced) and once in an infamous incident from the 1920's sought to destroy the Prophet's (alleged) tomb (they did destroy many other ancient graves which were believed to be linked to Mohammed's family and early followers) so as to prevent idolatrous reverence towards Mohammed himself. Again the fundmentalists in Islam are practising the most doctrinally-defensible version.

I am not a Muslim and the Qur'an alone is enough to make me wary of Islam in general, but a Qur'an-only Muslim (a rare, rare thing in the current Islamic cultural and religious climate) is infinitely more reasonable and, to be honest, good-hearted a person in my experience (see submission.org). They have had enough critical thought to dump a thousand years of non-Qur'anic religious practices and thus end up being far more liberal-minded usually than the religious text which they claim to follow. These protester make me wish Qur'an-only Muslims were the majority and not the 'tiny, minority of extremists' which they are.