Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani Get's it [mostly] right

This "cartoon" issue is of great importance to me because as a Pan-Africanist, the African state has all manner of religious people. There is no way a country with a plurality of beliefs can or should enforce the rules of any. Rather it should judicially enforce a level field by which all of them can coexist even when there is disagreement.

The Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani has said:

misguided and oppressive' segments in the Muslim community were by their actions "projecting a distorted and dark image of the faith."

I am glad that Al-Sistani got the point of the cartoons. That shows that the reason for publishing them has indeed made it's point to at least one person. Indeed had Van-Gogh not been killed, such a depiction of Mohammed would never had happened. Indeed it has been the violence of certain Muslims that is to blame for their mis-directed anger. If the cartoons are offensive, so is cold blooded murder (regardless of what God it's done for).

So why does Al-Sistani get it and not the fools shooting off guns, clearling shelves, kidnapping white people and threatening murder? I submit that the very people who would keep Islam on the track of peace and respect have been hunted down, killed, oppressed and forced to flee their home countries by the "misguided and oppressive" segments of Islam with the help of various entities (some of them Western as history shows).

Not only does Al-Sistani get it (mostly) right. So does Niranjan Ramakrishan

The incident came to mind when I saw reports of protests, among other countries in Saudi Arabia (where one cannot possess a copy of the Bible or the Gita, and the only public worship allowed is that of Islam), and from Pakistan (where there are recent reports of young women being forcefully converted to Islam, and people of the "wrong" religions being on death row for blasphemy), up in arms about cartoons in a Danish newspaper making fun of the Prophet. In Gaza, Fatah activists (eager to make up for their recent electoral loss, perhaps) were shown bustling about with shoulder fired missiles, issuing threats to people from certain countries to leave in 10 hours, failing which their lives would be in jeopardy.

Of course, none of these same protesters have no complaint with western personages Carlyle, Bernard Shaw or Goethe for praising Prophet Mohammed. Like the rest of us, they are happy when they or theirs is praised, unhappy when criticized or satarized.

Except, however, most of us don't threaten to kidnap and kill people who have criticized us, nor write specious screeds pointing out the difference between freedom and license. We shrug and move along, knowing that not everyone needs to accept our beliefs for us to be secure in ours. It is as simple as that.

Here here!

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