Word: beiruters
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...intolerance for free speech and democratic pluralism—an intolerance that reiterates the gaping incompatibility between dogmatic religion and democratic dissent. After the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten ran a cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed dressed as a suicide bomber, many Muslims rose up in arms, setting embassies in Beirut and Damascus ablaze, storming the European Union (EU) office in Gaza, boycotting Danish products or withdrawing their ambassadors, and desecrating the Danish flag. The cartoon, clearly offensive for its rendition of the prophet as a terrorist, further incensed Muslims, for whom any depiction of Mohammed is sacrilegious. Despite the odious...
...Islam. Yet even for Westerners sympathetic to Muslims' right to vent their anger, the mayhem that marked the protests last week was as unsettling as the cartoons themselves. A day after mobs in Damascus torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies, rioters set fire to the Danish consulate in Beirut; Iranians hurled gasoline bombs at Denmark's embassy in Tehran and smashed the windows of Austria's. In Afghanistan a protest outside a U.S. military base left two people dead after local police opened fire on the crowd; nine more people died in similar clashes around the country. A Taliban leader...
...into another major crisis in relations-one that appears to have developed a self-perpetuating momentum that will be hard to stop. It has escalated rapidly in the last few days, with imams around the world fanning anger in last Friday's mosque sermons, and mobs in Damascus and Beirut attacking embassies over the weekend. Muslim television and newspapers have provided blanket coverage, bloggers have stoked outrage on the Internet and more governments and Islamic groups have declared support boycotts...
...dramatic attacks on the Danish as well as Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday, and on the Danish mission in Beirut Sunday, are the most violent manifestations to date, but fury over the cartoons has been spreading fast from Muslim communities in Europe through the Middle East all the way to Indonesia. Its spread has been accelerated by widespread anti-Western anger over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Western moves to block the development of Iran's nuclear ambitions. And the uproar is being exploited by regimes such as Iran and Syria, who hope...
...hardly be restrained from calling the faithful to action. "It is the duty of all Muslims to wake up from their deep sleep and defend their religion," declared an imam broadcasting a sermon live on Algeria's national television network last week. If the scenes in Damascus and Beirut are anything to go by, more confrontation is still to come...