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Looking at the news it looks to me that Muslim violence or the threat of violence works. Is the UK government cowtowing to Muslim terrorism at the expense of freedom when Jack Staw thanked papers in the UK for not publishing the Danish cartoons? Is the police now also so scared of Muslims terrorism that they are failing to enforce the law when Muslims incite violence and call for killings? Is the BBC so terrified of Muslim terrorism that they also have to put up some article about how shocked Muslims are about Muslim violence or something about ?this is not representative of Islam and Islam is really a nice religion? despite the fact that Islamic violence kills more people than any other terrorism over the last 20 odd years?

If it had been any other groups, say for example neo-Nazis, would we have had the same reaction for offending neo-nazis if cartoons of Hitler had been published? Would the papers after Kristallnacht be saying that Nazis were shocked and that they are really nice people or that this was not representative of Nazism?

Or is this all about oil? Is the attempt to appease Muslims about trying to keep the Saudis happy because they have the oil?

I find it very worrying that the Governments and the Press do not dare to stand up against the Muslims. We have a saying in Swedish "It is easier to make a dam in a stream than in a river" i.e. Stop it while it is still in small proportions because it will get out of hand if it escalates.

If it wasn?t for the freedom of speech, that I sincerely hope that the World press stand behind, the Muslims would have NO right to speak so my call to the press is DON?T waste your RIGHTS by not publishing what is in the interest of the public.

The oil is definitely a bargening factor to be counted on but in the long run it is the oil producing countries that are going to be hit the most.

"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Voltair.

I'm not sure it's about oil, though with Saudi being Muslim there is a connection of some sorts. I expect it's more about the large Muslim populations in most Western countries, and the small group of extremeists who may cause trouble.

I think there's been a lot of tension building for some time now between Western and Muslim culture, and this event has just given it something to focus on. It's an issue where Western culture really can't understand what the big deal is, and Muslims can't understand why freedom of speech might come above criticising a religion. An interesting point is that as far as I know making images of Muhammad is not banned at all in the Qur'an, but is banned in the Hadith, which is not God's word, but a collection of traditions and sayings based on Muhammad's life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith It seems that an equivalent for Christian religion would be a cartoon making fun of the robes that priests wear, as opposed to a cartoon of Jesus on the cross, i.e. tradition as opposed to core articles of faith.

First of all: People in the ME generally live under oppresive regimes and have a lot to be discontent with. Add analphabetism and a class of priests living well on the poor, and you get a nasty mixture. If they not had that darn oil in the region, we would treat them as we treat Zimbabwe.

Secondly: A historical expose of depictions of Muhammed:

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/