Mohammed vs Laudrup

The year is 1992, I am a small kid, about 7 years old, I am frantically on my way back home, I get out from the car and leave my parents wondering in their seats....shit shit shit, I gotta get there on time...it can't be true, the bell is already ringing in my mind's eye, grandma opens, I push her aside and go over to the TV set...

and by the lordy Allah it's true, oh my Allah! it can't be!

Denmark has scored the second!
It was 1992 Euro Cup finals, Germany vs Denmark, I was a real German at the time, they exerted a much more attractive halo than the boring USA dudes who always win.
some dude named Marc Laudrup scored twice, it was my first encounter with the Danes, and it left a permanent childhood scar that forever haunted me...
so there, I told ya! u keep shutting me up but I told u and u won't listen...Denmark is the devil! Told u, for ten years I been tellin' ya....they are no use, there is no use....and now it's been done, now it's broke and ain't nobody's gonna do something about all the shit...

I wake up, go to the fridge, do a sleepy-eye makeshift inspection, and voila, there in the treacherous corner of the first drawer....what the?
An almost depelted package of Danish butter Lurpak...
Blood and sugar pressures went to the devil immediately...this is outrage! This is blasphemous, how can a Danish product survive in our god-abiding, muslim household...La, and a thousand La...I took out the cursed vile from the refrigerator and recalimed the appliance in the name of Islam.
I whipped out a knife, and with a ear-piercing 'Allahu Akbar' that startled my half-deaf gradnma I charged, cutting up the cursed butter into slices, frantically, I spread that on bread and added the nice aftertouch of strawberry blood - munching up the dreaded work of Satan quickly into oblivion, my mission to eradicate the evil conspiracy off the face of the planet was a resounding success!

Burp.

Seriously now,
I've already talked this at New York Times, my attitude was that of regret over the the Muslim reaction but with a somewhat Arabian pride - not the usual look-how-stupid-we-are stance taken by secular thinkers. Unforuntaely, I gave the Times the luxury to edit as they please, I was a wee lad, couldn't believe it, so they shelved up the Arab pride aspects - and so I felt I had to re-write my mind.
Some blogging friends of mine have already pointed out that them people who cry foul cuz the prophet's drawn are irrelevant cuz he's already been done a thousand times are a little missing the point, and so are other friends who for some unknown reason think the fuss is cuz Danish people did it are WAAY missing it...
not to sound like I'm full-of-myself selling-crap-for-cake pipe-mouth but here's my 2 cents :
First off, the publishing act in itself got the heat because of THE TIMING. The timing is critical, always, think Nirvana's Nevermind or Michael Jackko'S thriller - hitting the world at the right hour on the zeitgeist clock...
and what better timing to create a chaos when relations between Muslims and the West are constantly muddy after Septemebr 2001, the unspoken public Image of Islam has finally bared its ugliness out in the open -
Now, listen, just shut up and listen a minute before u go burning embassies and churches, it is natural somehow that this feast of uncovery would manifest itself in a country as removed from the affair as Denmark, had this occured in US or Uk, it probably wouldn't have seen the light of day cuz these people are knee-deep in shit with Islam already, they know it hurts the public image and wouldn't tolerate that kind of stuff. It's only common sense that this Western perspective of Islam would be more visible on the parts of world that are a little more ignorant of the sensitivty of such subjects and didn't forsee the true enormity nor concept of what is afoot - good ole Danes are probably the most tolerant of the lot and didn't munch about with Islamic jihaad, so they let loose what is a general overview of Islam not in Denmark but the West in general, in the same way that the cartoons aren't about Mohammed explicitly but really describes Muslims objectively, but u have to have it in a box so u can point ur finger at it, and Denmark unwittingly reaped what they sow.
I have always disliked collective judgement 'All mosul people are cheap'....'all Kuwait are Moslem Jews'....blah blah blah...So right now it's 'All danish are Islam-haters' the cartoons more or less is the indirect product of Al-Qaeda's battles with the West; the violent un-tolerant ideas they presented to the world as Islam, when u're sitting around at the best country in the world living the American Life, and some maniac kabooms a plane to ur favorite trade tower in the name of Islam and Muhammed, would u expect urself to understand the more tolerant aspects of the religion, aspects which hasn't affected u in any way or to fear and hate the gun-toting bearded dude who appears on TV and threatens to eradicate all ur life away for no particular reason of YOUR own doing?
Don't call ur friend for this one.
and so the rest of the Moslem world hung its collective world like it always did and let Bin Laden do the talking, then there's always these people :

Kid : Look at these embassies burning! They're loonies!Grandma: Why is that? They get what they deserve! those heathens, insulting our religion like this...Kid : Well i'm with the demonstrations and all, but what about the violence?Grandma: Things get out of hand...u know...too much spirit...Kid : What about the church bombings here?Grandma : That's Jew's work...like the Sep 2001....
welcome to the way life works presented by A Muslim...Jews Jews jews...Tom & Jerry? Arab & Jew! Adil Imam? Jew...Michael Jackson? Jew....Ur slipper cut off? Jew did it while u sleeping....

Aha! Eureka, we solved it! then u get these clueless Danish dudes who want to do the book about Islam, he can't find a cartoonist, so he tests the freespeech, in this rational gleeful offensive way Westerners often do.
The act was stupid, the insults intended, but perhaps innocent in not knowning how offensive! they could've did a vague Muslim caricature but they had to go and pick on the prophet himself! I believe in freedom of speech and all that, but this is kicking waay below the belt dude, Jyllands-Posten itself declined to publish Jesus-related material, citing its likely to create 'unfavorable tension'....and why can nobody diss the holocaust then? ha? answer me this?....fuckin' double-standards...
The acts of bombings, protests and embassy fires have cemented the fact that Muslims in general are intolerant and barbaric on such religious matters, and probably on all matters. In my opinion, what was needed was a reaction of dignity, a reaction that showed ur offender how small and meaningless was his childish purposes were...I'm all for the economic sanction...it's effective, suave and wouldn't hurt anybody in the physical sense, unfortunately, that is all apeshit in a nation of short-tempered history.
But i can't deny another thing....
U know...I watch these marches, and I feel it, THE PRIDE, the dangerous pride, of the ancient nation....that we can do something, we ain't as scattered, fat and torn as we have always thought we are, the force of reaction was fierce and admirable - i know it was wrong, but it was enjoyable in a sick kind of way, it's really weird, it's like when this one time Ahmedinijad was barking on the TV about not giving in to USA ways, and there's my grandpa saying :
'I like that motherfucker'
Grandpa! Why u painter, poet, Iraqi military ambassador at USA in the sixties, Sunni colonel...why would u say such a thing?
'Cuz he ain't afraid of the West'
and that's just right! he put it perfectly, the march, Ahmedinijad and even Bin Laden all cast a glint of sick, incorrect pride in the heart of every true Moslem no matter how much he tells u he condmens these vile acts, cuz we are born and raised on lost glory and the true embodiment of Islam, nevermind the nuke or the misguided Jihad, i'm talking about my own star-spangled banner, these are the only people who put up a fight when everybody's else is in bed with the powers that be.

There is nothing wrong with that pride, but the fault is in that so far there is no outlet for it except by being an outlaw.

And therefore, urgent need is now for another facet of that pride, a facet that is both morally and politically correct - the moderate Islam rising up to counter-act the four years of Islam extremism has done to deform its name.
The cartoons are a blessing in disguise, Islam has a golden opportunity now to present its moderate, forgiving core to the masses at large, at its real heart - Islam is more about free debate and forgiveness. Both the cartoons and Bin Laden are the work of extremists on either sides of the factions, extremists who try to widen the gap between cultures.
The prophet has been routinely kicked and spit upon in his early days, but he was patient, he was patient, he never did what u all did now...witness this quran verse : 'O unbelievers, I do not worship that which u worship...u have your religion and I have mine', nobody cares about it now cuz it promotes freedom of religion and that's incompatible with the common Islam idea in the west...Islam needs to abandon the sword and beard and wear the suit and tie, like Kurt Cobain once said : 'Infiltrate the system, then rot from within'

This post was more hard-hearted and cynical originally, but I watched Amro Khalid's two-centing the topic yesterday and I am ashamed to tell all my rock'n'roll-mentality brothers that tears actually streamed down my face...Islam's a beautiful thing....it's so sad what's going on...

'We have made you into different nations and cultures so that you may know and learn from each other'- Holy Quran