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22. Feb 2006

Overreaktion, styrke, svaghed, trussel?

 
Vi skal være bange for muslimerne, forsikrer den danske højreløj med Dansk Folkeparti i spidsen: De er en trussel mod os, mod vores civilisation, og de voldelige protester mod Danmark viser, hvor farlige og magtfuldkomne "de" er.

Eller?

De voldelige protester, blandet med de endnu flere ikke-voldelige protester, blandet med endnu flere muslimers afstandtagen fra voldelige protester synes snarere at vise, at der ikke er noget "de".

Og om ikke andet synes netop de voldelige protester snarere at pege på en magtesløshed i den islamiske verden, en erkendelse af, at alt for mange islamiske lande er korrupte tyrannier, som oven i købet er i netop det USAs sold, som de selvsamme korrupte regeringer rutinemæssigt fordømmer.

Svend White skærer det ud i pap på Akram's Razor, med henvisning til optøjerne i Pakistan:
The grisly show continues, as mobs in Pakistan swing into action to defend the Prophet by...vandalizing businesses in Peshawar. That'll show those villains at Jyllands-Posten.

I'm reminded a bit of race riots in this country, where rioters often shoot themselves in the foot by trashing shops and other scarce economic infrastructure in their own communities. The psychological reasons are complex, of course, but it's still tragic.
Ibrahim N. Abusharif konkluderer noget lignende hos alt.muslim:
The cartoons are indeed disfigurements of the Noble Prophet. So they offended a lot of Muslims. Because these Muslims were offended that someone would carelessly associate the Prophet with violence, many Muslims went out and made violence. Now, it could be me, but I find that odd.

The overreactions to these cartoons that I have seen show an unsightliness that is antithetical to the personality and message of Prophet Muhammad. But what the intense dudgeon does reveal is a funk uncovered by the cartoons, a funk perhaps associated with a variety of things, like economic and political cul-de-sacs systemic in the Muslim east. The intelligentsia of the Muslim world needs to honestly unpack the meaning of the reactions to these cartoons because clearly something else is afoot.

Nearly every Muslim knows that disparagement of the Prophet of Islam is hardly new. Just as Medieval Europe created fear-fantasies about Jews, "Christ-killers" who apparently ate children, so too did they produce a miasma of animus directed toward the Prophet Muhammad.
(...)
The Muslim response to the Medieval venom was, in the main, intellectual, secure, and civil - a reaction that reflects not weakeness but "psychological invincibility" of Muslims of the time, as the late Prof. Fazlur Rahman (University of Chicago) so aptly observed in his book Islam. The violent reactions to these cartoons today reflect, I'm afraid, vincibility.
Sagt på en anden måde, så skyldes de voldsomme reaktioner ikke så meget styrke som svaghed og pres. Hvis muslimer ikke var en trængt og forhånet minoritet i Danmark, ville de danske imamer aldrig have følt sig nødsaget til at søge støtte udefra, men ville have kunnet tage det oppefra og ned. Men det er de, og det kan gøre det sværere at forlange, nogen skal acceptere fortsat forhånelse og ydmygelse med en stoisk værdighed, som højrefløjen ikke selv plejer at besidde alt for meget af, når det er deres egne sukkermadder, det går ud over.

Den måske smukkeste og mest rammende muslimske reaktion på Jyllands-Postens latterlige tegninger skyldes Aziz fra City of Brass, hvis synspunkt er, at there is no insult to Islam:
Islam is infinite. They can burn the Qur'an, or insult the Prophet SAW, or outlaw the hijab. But they can never erase the delicate calligraphy of Deen upon the muslim's soul. Our religion is infinitely greater than the sum of their scorn, and as such we have no opinion on their insults as they matter, in the end, not even the tinest whit.
Hvilket nok burde fortælle os, at de hærværksmænd, som brændte de danske repræsentationer i Damaskus og Beirut af eller drog hærgende gennem Pakistans gader ikke "repræsenterer Islam" eller muslimer generelt mere end White Pride eller Louise Frevert repræsenterer Danmark.

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