The reform needed in Islam is the same reform needed by all other religions — abolition.
There is no justification for the continued existence of primitive belief systems in a world where we can disprove just about everything mentioned in the holy books of said religions. They are tools of the ignorant, only perpetuated by ignorance and brain-washing. They are the uninformed ramblings of delusional desert-men, grasping for explanations as to why the sun goes down at night.
The fact that you try to defend the Muslims who committed this fire-bombing makes me embarrassed for you and shows how completely out of touch they are with the realities of the situation. This newspaper made fun of Islam. It doesn’t matter fuck-all why they did it. They did not bomb anyone, kill anyone, or injure anything other than the typically fragile egos of the fanatically religious. You cannot say that this response is not part of a larger pattern of violence among Muslims. Just because we can predict the irrational , disproportionate reactions of fanatical Muslims does not excuse their behaviour.
I don’t think Muslims were being baited here, but let’s say for the sake of argument that they were. What does that change? These were human beings with the capability of rational thought who firebombed a building because of satirical articles and cartoons. Muslims are people and they should be held to the same standard we expect of any other person. This has happened too many times before.
If Muslims want to change the perception of Islam, the onus is on them to do so. And as long as this type of behaviour is justifiably expected of them, they will continue to be looked down upon. Fix your own problems before you bitch about perception.
For the sake of brevity, I’ve omitted the original parts of this post which can be found here.
In response to brad-t:
Firstly, if you read my blog, you’ll note that I am totally against radical or irrational responses to the slander that is heaped against Islam and Muslims. So for you to be embarrassed for my part because of my supposed defense of the above action is for one thing pompous (there’s that word again) and for another grossly misinformed.
Secondly, actually you cannot “disprove just about everything mentioned in the holy books of said religions” because you’re obviously again misinformed in believing that the Quran contains the same scientifically proven inaccuracies of the bible. If you take the time to read the Quran, you’ll note that there are a number of accuracies contained therein, so much so that present day scientists cannot explain how such accurate detail could have been contained in a scripture from the desert penned by an illiterate man over 1400 years ago. So in fact the reverse of your statement is actually true. Embryology, big bang theory, orbital paths of the planets, origin of the moon, etc. Look it up. You may be pleasantly surprised to discover that the Quran explained these concepts when the church was still burning people at the stake for opposing the flat-earth view.
Thirdly, I will never defend a Muslim or anyone else if their actions are blatantly contrary to Islamic beliefs, and obviously extreme. Again, read through some of my posts and you’ll note that I am not in any way supportive of extremism, and in fact, neither is Islam which dictates that we lead a life of moderation. Killing of innocent women and children, suicide bombings, cowardly acts of terror, disproportionate use of force, scorched earth policy, etc. are all hallmarks of warfare of the western powers and other non-Muslim organisations like the Tamil Tigers that Muslims have unfortunately adopted for themselves. Just because it’s carried out by Muslims these days does not in any way imply that it is sanctioned in Islam. It’s not!
As for your final paragraph, there is actually some truth in there. Again, read my posts and you’ll see that I fully encourage the reformation of Muslims before we complain about the perception of the West on Islam. Muslims have tainted the image of Islam, and not the other way around. If you read my original response to this post again, I suspect you’ll note that I did in fact raise concerns about both sides and not just one, unlike you that appear to be making the publisher a victim in all this. The Muslims were wrong to firebomb the building because it was a cowardly act, and the publisher was wrong to be deliberately insensitive on what is obviously a very volatile subject. Act in the extreme, and you can expect responses in the extreme. Again, that is not a justification, simply stating the facts because it’s obvious that this world is not full of rational people, be they Muslim, non-Muslim or otherwise.