A picture paints a thousand words.

An issue which had almost started a nationwide fight about religion had the people talking about it for quite some time. The accused is the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten while the one accusing and are making a big fuss about it are the Muslim Imams. The crime of the accused is for publishing the 12 caricatures of the Imams beloved Prophet Muhammad. There is a saying that goes like this, a picture paints a thousand words, well, how about 12 pictures? Were the Muslims too sensitive or was it because the Danish were too insensitive?

Source:  http://face-of-muhammed.blogspot.com/

The case had impacted the Danish export industry which is mainly caused by riots, protests and boycotts going on all over the world; the attacks against the Denmark’s Embassy and so on over a misunderstanding in which Samuel Huntington described as the conflict between two different cultures. This disagreement had been caused due to the different natures between the west and the Muslim countries as Peter Mares discussed in his interview with Jytte Klausen, the west practices the freedom of speech with an open mind while in the Muslims’ countries, one must be respectful towards their religion and prophets.

According to the BBC News article that I have found online, there was a write up about the overall incident, in which, some of the Muslims felt that their fellow religious protesters were over-reacting. One of the editors of the newspaper, Carsten Juste, believed that the freedom of speech has been curbed and held back because of religion. The editors of the Jyllands-Posten stand firm in their accusations, defending themselves by saying that their depictions of the Prophet Muhammad were not to insult the Muslims but to experiment about this and as Jyllands-Posten’s culture editor, Fleming Rose pointed out, Islam should not be treated differently from other religion or religious figures as it has long been a ‘Danish tradition of biting satire with no taboos’(BBC News).


References
  
'Danish Imams Propose to End Cartoon Dispute', The Brussels Journal, 22 January 2006, viewed 14 November 2010, < http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/698 >


'The 12 Muhammad Drawings', Face of Muhammad, 31 December 2006, viewed 14 November 2010, < http://face-of-muhammed.blogspot.com/ >


Q&A: The Muhammad Cartoon Rows, BBC News, 7 February 2006, viewed 14 November 2010, < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4677976.stm >