Does Anyone Doubt It Now?

If you think that the Islamic war on the cartoons is a silly thing, you are right. In your western perspective you are right.

But you have another think coming, as my grandma used to say.

In my other think over the last few days, several rather unpleasant things intruded into the silliness.

1. There are many silly things done in the name of religion in the United States and in the other secular democracies. It is bearable because it is one of the costs of liberty. But the silly things being done in the name of Islam are not bearable. We forgive a child for being silly; we cannot bear the silliness of a murderer.

2. It is one thing for a man to be silly; it is another thing for millions to be silly. As long as Hitler was saying his silly things in beer halls he was laughable, but the world stopped laughing when he gained the power and might of Germany and the obedience of the German people. It suddenly stopped being funny. The affair of the cartoons shows that the present silliness of Islam isn't funny, either. The very existence of liberty and freedom is at risk. "To Hell with freedom" read one of the signs among the protestors. This is not the sentiments of one or two silly people, but the sentiments of millions around the world.

3. Silliness can be tolerated unless it is in possession of deadly weapons. We may tut, tut over the rantings of a child who is angry about something, but the whole business is changed if the child is holding a shot-gun, or in the case of the His Silliness in Iran, the makings of nuclear weapons. There is no tut, tut about that.

There are dangerous days ahead.