Cartoon

Cartoons are usually made to make us laugh, we look at Bugs Bunny, The Flintstones and even the Simpsons and get a smile or understand it to be in jest. Now there have been increasingly cartoons that are of a more adult nature, things like Anime and South Park and on the more devious side pornographic cartoons. Now for years newspapers have used the cartoon as a form of commentary ever since the invention of the newspaper, these cartoons usually are caricatures of famous people or people groups, for example , Presidents and Senators or Hitlers famous cartoons depicting the Jewish people as something less than human. Throughout the years there have been many of these cartoons that have made fun of, or literally blasphemed a God or religion or religious leader. Usually with little uproar, especially here in the United States. Today we stand at another time that these cartoons are causing an uproar. This time a Danish newspaper printed a cartoon with the picture of Muhammad with a bomb as a turban. Now in Islam creating a picture of the prophet Muhammad is forbidden. This picture has cause a huge reaction in the Middle East, people have been burning buildings and even murdering people over this cartoon. Now as an American I firmly believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, I believe that this paper has the right to print these pictures, as do any other publications. However even we as Americans know that free speech has its limit, for example a person cannot walk into a crowded theatre and yell, "FIRE!!", because it causes an unwarranted sense of panic and even danger to those in the theatre. The publishers and Editors of this paper may or may not have know what kind of reaction this cartoon would have caused , but by doing so, they have , put many in danger, I do agree that the Muslim response is probably hyped up by more extreme factions within the Muslim world, and this violence is hardly justified, but neither is the lack of sensibilities shown by the European press. Now I've heard many westerners say that the press has drawn many cartoons making fun of Jesus or Christians, so the Muslims should just deal with it. I couldn't agree less, just because its been done before and some bonehead cartoonist and editor said "OK" to cartoon that is offensive to a large portion of the population, doesn't make it OK to do again. I can agree that political cartoons are meant to incite, but to be ignorant or just plain uncaring with regard to the sensibilities and sensitivities of millions of people is wrong. I don't know how this will all turn out in the end, but I hope that this will awake the world press to the fragility of the world we live in today and in turn will help take step toward peace.