Things are out of control

Most people reading international news, must have read about the violent “debate“on the drawings published by a Danish newspaper, JP. The drawings has travelled the world and has provoked demonstations, brnings, trade boycuts, and unfortunately also people getting killed in demonstrations.

The Danish people are all very surprised that things has gone this far. Partly people contribute some of the blame to a handful Danish prominent and a bit more extreme muslims, travelling the world with the drawings, in order to draw attention to them.

The drawings
The drawings has clearly provoked the Muslim religious believes, but to some extend unjustified. I hate to get to the point where I have to consider if some of these countries are really interested in openness or a philosophy of meaning other cultures well, or not. Not that I’m too afraid of terror, Denmark has been a target since the involvement in the Iraq conflict, but the new riots bring extra fear to the world.

The Danish government
Surely the Danish government has been extremely slow and incompetent in this matter, and the newspaper could have handled things differently. But the Danish newspapers are extremely protective about the freedom of speech. No one controls the Danish media – surely not any government instance.

I hope to see some dialogue in this soon. All though I seriously doubt many understand this necessity or are willing to go in that direction. My hopes are that people, Muslims in general as well as the Danish population, will set things in perspective. When things like this happen, it makes it so obvious that cultures are very must different, even though we (at least the Danes) tend to hope or be naive and think all cultures are getting more alike.

We are different
Let’s just remember that. We ARE different, we should respect this, and we should put things in perspective. It may be harder for some to do that, perhaps some don’t have the biggest insight in other cultures, due to so many factors. But that puts a greater responsibility on the shoulders of those that do recognize this. A responsibility to work in a civilized, and diplomatic way to increase understanding and knowledge of other cultures.

So many things are said of this conflict, some should be unsaid, but respect must be restored, even though things take time!

[TAG]Denmark, Muhammed+drawings[/TAG]