ehm Seb do you remember that CD cover with "virgin" Mary and baby Jesus portiaed as a rat??? there was an outrage although no one burned down any embassy
What i find particullarly dirsturbing is the instigation.
fact 1: cartoons were published in September and no one was bothered by them.
fact 2: i just saw a guy from protesters saying all they are demanding is official appology from Danish prime minister - how come someone told them abotu the cartoon and not about the fact that he already appologiezed??? Instigators!
fact 3: while some i saw were funny (to me) some of the caricatures were really insulting (picturing someone's god as a dirty pig is just rude)
fact 4: a lot of muslim countries forbid mocking from other religions. Such as for example Indonesia. Censorship is very strickt on this matter and for example Life of brian form Monthy Payton was never shown there because it is considered to be offensive to Christians. is it then a surprise that they demand the same in other countries?
And to rebuke some of the stereotypes - it is not true taht the more you go to the east the more extreemist religions you will face. It is true that people in Asia are religious, yet for example majority of muslims in indonesia are not extreemists.
And it is not true that islam is violent religion. in fact it could be that it is even less violent than christianity. how is that possible? well for starters you can not just confess when you kill someone and then everything is ok. no a sin is a sin and remains a sin and if you do it you go to hell. no money, no prayer can make it go away. while in christianity this is not the case. example if you are religious, you can steal and then go to confession and everything will be ok. you wont see your worst nightmare in afterlife.
yes, there are quite a few terrorist groups out there. but i don't think they are spawned by religion but by situation those people are in. illiteracy, poor living conditions, no hope of brighter tommorrow, repression, being treated as inferior etc. the list goes on.
Oh and when you think abotu the clean peacefull catholic religion, think abotu the IRA, ETA, the extremist in Corsica, Cosa Nostra and finnaly "the slaughterhosue" that happened in the Balkans.