[ExI] Terrorist? Who can tell?

[Harvey Newstrom]

"spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote,
> I looked up "criticism of Islam" in wikipedia and found this comment by
> Deepa Kumar: "The Danish cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb on 
> his
> head is nothing if not the visual depiction of the racist diatribe that
> Islam is inherently violent."

OK, I admit that the lines between racism, religionism, and countryism 
become blurred.  I can see where people use the word "racism" to include 
fear of foreigners.  What I really meant is that I don't see Muslims 
claiming to be a separate race.  However, I do see Muslims claiming racism 
against them.

I can't say this is an invalid claim.  I suspect that most racists are 
simply against them foreigners, and don't distinguish if they hate them for 
being a different religion, a different race, or both.  They assume they are 
all inferior or all terrorists or all something.  Its a very fine 
technicality to try to distinguish this from racism.

> The cartoon
> doesn't generalize to all Muslims, or all Arabs or all Presbyterians.

I also find this claim to be disingenuous.  Everybody agrees that the 
character depicted is Mohammed.  So how can you then claim not to know what 
race he is or what religion he represents?  It seems clear that he 
represents Muslims and/or Arabs and/or Arabic Muslims.  The symbol clearly 
implies that the leader himself was a terrorist, and by extension all his 
followers are too.  I don't see what other interpretation can be made from 
this cartoon.  If that's not the message, then what is?

--
Harvey Newstrom <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
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