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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                Chris Elliott                        Zach Lee                  Christian Palmer
                Geronimo Rodriguez       Blake Whitaker       Kristen Young

Muhammad cartoons: Worst. Idea. Ever.

The recent publication of cartoons in several European newspapers satirizing the Prophet Muhammad has incited violence among Muslim populations.

Anger is certainly the appropriate response when your religious beliefs are mocked at an institutional level. Violence against foreign embassies, however, is completely unproductive and should be condemned. One Somalian teen has already been trampled to death, and six demonstrators have been killed in Afghanistan. Dozens of individuals on both sides of the conflicts have been injured.

The cartoons -- one of which depicts Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban -- are unquestionably offensive. At a time when the West and the Islamic world are often on shaky terms, and according to some extremists, at war, the drawings are incredibly ill-advised.

We believe in freedom of the press, but that freedom must be tempered with good judgment -- that does not include potentially starting holy wars.

At the same time, those attempting to inflict violence on police and embassy officials are not gaining sympathy for their plight and are in fact aggravating tensions further. They were wronged, but participating in a cycle of senseless bloodshed will only make that worse.

Religious tolerance does not mean excusing the actions of oppressive theocracies like Iran or men like Osama bin Laden. It does, however, prohibit insulting an entire faith. The cartoons were not just offensive to violent extremists -- they likely offended many of you, our fellow Cougars, as well. 

Perhaps the cartoonists' intent was to depict how fundamentalists have used their faith as an excuse for violence. Even if that's the case, they had to know their cartoons were going to have a negative effect on world relations.

And if things keep moving along on the current track, those relations are only going to worsen.