My Disagreement with Dr. Kumar

She argues liberals are providing cover for the right when they defend the anti-Arab cartoons.

I have linked to the cartoons online and find no reason to regret that action. I also link to cartoons making fun of Christian, American and Western fanatics.

I do not have respect for beliefs that try to restrict what other people say - I get enough of that from Christian fundamentalists.

I see little difference between jokes or cartoons about Muhammad saying "Sorry, we have run out of virgins" to people at the pearly gates and similar Christian afterlife cartoons.

If some Muslims object to depictions of Mohammad why are they protesting depictions in Denmark and not in Arab bazaars? Why did these protests flare up months after the cartoons? Was this a Saudi Arabian government newspaper campaign, joined later by other Arab countries, to distract attention from their own problems?

That said, I agree with Deepa Kumar's points about the anti-Islam, anti-Arab stupidity and racist stereotyping spreading the storyline of an Islamofascist "Clash of Civilizations." That was a bad article and drawing in The Progressive and shows some of the racist elements in populism. Arab people strongly object to our policies and not our freedoms.

I just don't believe that one of the major world religions should be treated as a poor helpless victim that people shouldn't laugh at. Especially not when some elements of it have shown murderous tendencies toward those who publish words and pictures they disagree with.

What we have is a sharp rise in authoritarian fundamentalist conservative nationalist beliefs throughout the world. Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, Christianity and other religions all have experienced this. I hope these things follow cycles in that we soon come to an end of this one.

Tags: cartoons, Kumar, Islam, Arab, liberal, free speech