Recently over the weekend, the Islamic world has been in an uproar over a Western scandal.

They are upset over a cartoon that was printed in a Danish newspaper over four months ago.

And what is the Islamic world’s response to this cartoon?

They have threatened to attack foreign aid workers throughout the Middle East who had nothing to do with any of this, and have burned Danish embassies from Syria to the Indonesia.

Governments from Egypt to Pakistan have demanded that the paper be stopped and that an apology be issued.

Unlike most protests, this one carried messages of death and punishment for the cartoonist. “His hands must be cut off for this offense at the least.”

I find it odd that all of a sudden this cartoon is just now being decried by Muslims.

To me this shows that there are leaders in the Islamic world who start ranting and raving just to whip up anti-Western sentiments among their people.

I have believed that most of the hate and acts of violence in the name of Islam were all coming from a small, vocal section of the Islamic world. The average Muslim can’t be that much different from me.

I figured much of the silence coming from the Muslim world was due to the oppressive regimes that the vast majority live under.

However, between the mass riots which caused more than a few deaths, the election of Hamas and now this explosion of hate leading to the attacks of innocent people over a few political cartoons, it makes you wonder what the real percentage of tolerant Muslims there is out there.

SEAN MARTIN

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT

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