Hello. This really isn't meant to offend anyone and I have muslim friends: rather I view this as a commentary on behaviour.

If you haven't heard the last on goings about the brohaha in the Muslim world now: shame on you! For more info read this article. Anyway the point is the Muslim world at large is angry because a Danish newspaper had gone and defied their belief that the Prophet Mohammad should not be depicted in drawings, even though they were given a warning and informed of the Muslim's belief.

However instead of saying who's wrong and who's in the right (I believe the Danish newspaper is in the wrong just for the record), what really got to me was how the Muslim world has responded.

In the news today there was this wonderful film clip of Muslims in Jakarta storming the Danish Embassy and
a) burning Denmark's flag
b) ripping Denmark's flag into shreds: the most creative being riding on different motorbikes in different directions
c) throwing bits of rubbish at the Danish state crests
d) covering the Danish state crests with that looks like a poster of Osama Bin Laden thrusting a knife into a Westerner's throat

I sat there thinking of what a right and proper mess they were making when the clip switched over to a peaceful scene of Muslims in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. They were having a sit down outside the Embassy there and they were completely organised.

Granted the attacks on the Embassy in Jakarta were by a hardline muslim group, but from a casual observer's point of view, he would have a very dim view of Muslims. This made me think of 'fighters' in the past who got what they wanted through very different means.

People remember Gandhi and Martin Luther King, two remarkable men who did not resort to violence to get what they wanted, and they changed the world completely. It is for that reason that they will always be remembered and thought well of.

People who resort to violence are hardly ever remembered. If I mentioned Emmeline Pankhurt, chances are you'd go: "Who?". Emmeline Pankhurt the founder of the women's suffrage movement in England in the early 1900s. Anyway this is to give you an idea of who she was (taken from the write up I did for Guide Camp)

Emmeline Pankhurst was a sufferage who fought ardently in the pre and post WWI period for women’s rights. She started the Women's Social and Political Union in 1905 which was more famous for it’s militant (and almost terrorist) stand when it’s demands were not ment after many years. When WWI broke out, Emmeline channelled her resources into the White Feather Campaign which gave out white feathers to men in civillian uniform to shame them into joining with the British Army. Her passionate and determined stand also earned her the dubious honor of being improsioned several times. In March 1918, women were finally given the right to vote, though equal rights were not given till 1928 (by way of voting age). She died age 69 on June 14^th, 1928.

Anyway the point I'm trying to make here is while it is always easy to fight for your beliefs with violence, no one will take notice or care because you're just doing what any red blooded human being would do. It takes a real person, a rational and respectable human to do what it hard: fight with gentleness and peace, not fists and weapons.